Comic Book Deaths - nothing "comic" about it...
Nor do I mean Deadman - although his creator, Arnold Drake, just passed away indeed... DEATH has been very busy making sure comic-book CREATORS take note that when it strikes, no one can come back (save for Divine Intervention...) - so that, maybe, comic-bookie scribes and (pr)editors will want to stop trivializing the passage from this world into the next...?
(And when I say "the next", I do not mean alternate realities, other dimensions, "pocket universes", "bottled realms/cities", "elseworlds", "hypertime" type planes of existence, alternate timelines or "mirror universes" - none of that crap, no!)
Dave Cochrum - at only 63 years of age, Legion of Super-Heroes and X-Men artist D.C. (!) passed away, of complications from diabetes, back in November 2006.
His widow, Paty had been very vocal about her dislike of Marvel, both her husband's former employer as her own (she had worked in the infamous Marvel Bullpen.)
Was there some form of malicious/psychic backlash, generated by one of those accursed Marvel mutants, against her beloved husband?
Doubtful - but Joe Quesada's evil eye, alone, could cause some discomfort to the best of them, I am sure...
Mr. Cochrum had created a lot of "cool characters" for the new X-Men - Storm and Nightcrawler notably - as well as eventual DC property Tyr, who was going to be a part of the new X-Men but, instead, wound up in the Legion of Super-Heroes' rogues gallery, where he would have been forgotten for the remarquable chance to be selected to get his own first-rate action figure done -against all odds in many ways- as a part of the Super Powers line from 1985. Tyr was thus given that treatment long before the X-Men were - I am at a loss though as to whether Dave Cochrum got any percentage at all from the sales of his character's figure. Though his creation and all, DC is notorious to not give creators their due (see more about that in Arnold Drake's eulogy - and in assorted obituaries throughout this site, whenever DC comes up...!) Dave Cochrum was every bit as good for the Legion as Steve Lightle was - and he was every bit as good for teams such as The Champions and the X-Men as George Perez had been for the Avengers and the Fantastic Four (and MUCH better than John Byrns had been to the latter team... My opine! Paty Cochrum has her opine too! Sue us both - why don't you, Marr-v-hell...)
Dave Cochrum is sorely missed.
Much courage to you, Paty.
Martin Nodell - the man who came up with the idea for the Golden Age Green Lantern "after seeing a New York subway train operator waving a lantern with a green light" (who said riding the subway was a waste of time) died last December at his home in Muskego, Wisconsin. He was 91. Mr. Nodell had also helped develop the character of the Pillsbury Doughboy, as it turns out - he had left the comic-book industry in the 1960s to go into advertising, see... The Green Lantern and the Pillsbury Doughboy are, cousins thus - who knew. And both are bereaved now; and orphans.
My condolences to the Nodells - belatedly.
(Hey - I am bereaved too; and awaiting condolences from some parties that, I know, will NEVER come forth... Not even belatedly!!!)
Arnold Drake - the creator of Doom Patrol, Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadman is, hence, a dead man as well now. He was 83 - he had just celebrated his birthday, in fact, and was hospitalized days later, to die a few days into said hospitalization ultimately. His gravestone will bear similar markings than those on my father's - as both were born and passed on in the same month of March. Arnold Drake had similat bad luck to mine, to boot - although basically luckier for starters (he was commissioned by a publisher to come up with concepts - me, I sent them in, unsolicited... His were picked up, mine were not.)
He saw his Doom Patrol have the misfortune of coming out virtually at the same time than similarly-themed X-Men; and the latter project eventually became extremely successful, while his did not. He conceptualized "Stanley & His Monster" way before a certain well-known cartoonist came up with the hugely popular Calvin And Hobbes - both have striking similarities too, but not the same degree of success, at all.
Only Deadman (pictured below) remains, as his lone "great success" - yet it is too eclectic and sophisticated (as, also, close to the truth) to meet with wide approval from the masses. Arnold Drake fought the good fight too: he championed the cause of his fellow older creators who were not properly taken care of in their latter days by the publishers who'd enriched themselves at their expense. He fought editorial thick-headedness - to the point that he was ousted unceremoniously and never again "allowed back in" (into what - an accursed nepotitical system such as that is rampant and prevailing in places such as DC, Marvel and others? Maybe one is better off out of it entirely...)
Now, Arnold Drake is admitted into a much better exclusive club: Scribesmen' Heaven!
I am sure Boston Brand showed him the way to get there by now...
Rest In Peace, Arnold Drake.
Marshall Rogers - only 57, Marshall passed away in late March of "unknown causes", originally... A stroke could be the cause although, at lugubrious blogging time, the true causes had not been revealed. An artist of great talent, Rogers had drawn a plethora of eclectic characters; but his best known work remains that which he rendered on the damnable Batman. At least Rogers had more integrity than most - he did not sell out and simply keep churning out Batty material in a market already saturated with it...
Marshall Rogers was the best - and he got so few chances to display it.
Sounds like someone I know, once more... But I am digressing, again...
R.I.P. guys
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ @ 9:45 PM
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